Life Term For Pizza Man`s Killing

October 03, 1992|By Matt Murray.

Queintin Stone, a 22-year-old Chicago man convicted in the 1990 strangulation of a pizza delivery man in Aurora, was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole.

Kane County Circuit Judge Barry Pulkin ruled that the aggravating factors in the murder of 20-year-old Jason Bercaw on Nov. 4, 1990, were sufficient to support the sentence. Bercaw, a Waubonsee Community College student, was killed while delivering a pizza for Domino`s.

Key among those factors was the fact that Bercaw`s slaying occurred during the commission of another felony-an armed robbery, Pulkin said.

The sentence was greeted with sobs and sighs by members of Bercaw`s family, who embraced one another as Stone was whisked from the courtroom.

``Thank God, after 23 months it`s finally over,`` said Bercaw`s mother, Charlotte Gillette. ``But it will never be over. This has restored my faith in the justice system. It`s what I wanted. I never wanted him to walk the streets again.``

Stone`s family left quickly after the sentencing. Stone, who did not testify in the case, declined to speak to the court before the sentencing.

Stone`s attorney, public defender Michael McInerney, said he expected an appeal to be filed in the case. The defense has 30 days to file an appeal.

McInerney said the appeal probably would focus on Pulkin`s earlier finding that Stone had strangled Bercaw. The defense tried to establish during the trial that, while Stone admitted to having been at the scene at the time of the killing, two other men who were with him committed the crime.

One of the men who Stone claimed had been there was shot to death in a Chicago alley last year. The other has never been identified.

But a neighbor testified during the trial that when she looked out of her window during the slaying she saw only one person hovering over a second figure. The second person was not moving, she said.